Cyborg Synesthesia

The waters of home are heavy. Liquid mercury reflecting the grey sky. I skip a rock over the surface. With each bounce, concentric circles of memory scatter, and I trip into a stutter. The splashing surf transforms into visual. A slip in my wiring and I see sound. At water’s edge, ripples sparkle pink. Glitching electric, I don’t see breaking waves. The fuchsia fireworks process as laughter. I see giggles, feel a dimpled hand in mine, wonder at a butterfly kiss on my cheek. The wind gusts and the pine needles shudder. The whispering trees are a synaptic scam. I read a violet kaleidoscope. Not shimmering leaves. Dancing polyhedrons are lilting riddles asked rapidly with no breath for an answer. I smell summer in his hair and taste innocent sweat. I embrace the vision. Hearing this errant loop, holding not him, but his misvibration, I lose myself in the harmonic vision of a breeze.

Mary Kay Durfee is an ‘Obstetrician-Hospitalist’ in Tucson, Arizona. She writes as a diversion from emergency cesareans, fentanyl withdrawal seizures, and postpartum hemorrhages.